Professor Xi Dai obtained his Bachelor and Master’s degree (1993 &1996) from Zhejiang University and PhD (1999) from Institute of Theoretical Physics, CAS in China. After graduation, he did postdoctoral research in HKUST, Boston college and Rutegrs University. From 2004-2007, he worked in University of Hong Kong as a research assistant professor. In 2007, he joined institute of physics, CAS as a professor in the theory division. In September 2017, he joined HKUST as a professor in the Department of Physics. Professor Dai received several important awards during the past ten years including the OCPA “Achievements in Asia Award” (2011), the CAS prize for outstanding scientific achievements and the KC Chou foundation “Fundamental Physics Prize” (2014).

Most of professor Dai’s previous research activities are concentrated in two fields. One is to develop computational methods for the electronic structure of the strongly correlated materials. The other one is to search for the topological non-trivial quantum state in realistic materials. In the first research field, with the collaboration with professor Z. Fang, they developed the Gutzwiller density functional theory (LDA+Gutzwiller) and applied it to study many of correlated materials, i.e. ferromagnetic metals, iron based superconductors and topological Kondo insulators. In the second field, together with the collaborating team formed by scientists from both IOP and Stanford University, they have proposed several very important topological insulators, i.e. Bi2Se3, Bi2Te3 and Sb2Te3. They also proposed that magnetic doped topological insulator thin film can realise quantum anomalous Hall effect, which has been confirmed by experiments in 2013. In 2015, professor Dai’s research team predicted the first Wely semimetal material TaAs family, which has soon been confirmed by both photo emission and transport experiments.